1.
France
–
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks

2.
Gard
–
Gard is a department in southern France in the Occitanie region. The department is named after the River Gardon, and the Occitan name of the river has been replacing the French name of the department in recent decades, see also, History of Gard The Gard area was settled by the Romans in classical times. It was crossed by the Via Domitia, which was constructed in 118 BC, Gard is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4,1790. It was created from the ancient province of Languedoc, in return, Gard received from Hérault the fishing port of Aigues Mortes which gave the department its own outlet to the Gulf of Lion. Gard is part of the region of Occitanie and is surrounded by the departments of Hérault, Lozère, Aveyron, Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, the highest point in the department is the Mont Aigoual. Serious flooding has occurred in the department in recent years, the President of the General Council is Denis Bouad of the Socialist Party. The incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy of the Union for a Popular Movement party received 24. 86% of the vote, the inhabitants of Gard are called Gardois. There are important Roman architectural remains in Nîmes, as well as the famous Roman aqueduct, Gard is also home to the source of Perrier, a carbonated mineral water sold both in France and internationally on a large scale. The spring and facility are located just south-east of the commune of Vergèze, prefecture website General Council website Welcome to the Gard Welcome to the Gard The Regordane Way or St Gilles Trail Map of the department Guide Gard

3.
Aigues-Mortes
–
Aigues-Mortes is a French commune in the Gard department in the Occitanie region of southern France. The medieval city walls surrounding the city are well preserved, the inhabitants of the commune are known as Aigues-Mortais or Aigues-Mortaises. Aigues-Mortes is located in the Petite Camargue some 90 km northwest of Marseilles, by road, Aigues-Mortes is about 33 km southwest of Nîmes, and 20 km east of Montpellier in a direct line. Access to the commune is by route D979 coming south from Saint-Laurent-dAigouze to Aigues-Mortes town, route D979 continues southwest through the commune to Le Grau-du-Roi. Route D62 also starts from Aigues-Mortes heading southwest parallel to D979 before turning eastwards, route D62A continues to Plan dEau du Vidourie. The commune is composed of a portion of the wet plains and it is separated from the Gulf of Lions by the town of Le Grau-du-Roi, however Aigues-Mortes is connected to the sea through the Canal du Rhône à Sète. There is only one other hamlet in the commune called Mas de Jarras Listel on the western border, a rail branch line from Nîmes passes through Aigues-Mortes from north-east to south-west, with a station in the town of Aigues-Mortes, to its terminus on the coast at Le-Grau-du-Roi. This line also transports sea salt, the communes of Saint-Laurent-dAigouze and Le Grau-du-Roi are adjacent to the town of Aigues-Mortes. Its inhabitants are called Aigues-Mortais or Aigues-Mortise, in Occitan they are aigamortencs, Aigues-Mortes is one of 79 member communes of the Schéma de cohérence territoriale of South Gard and is also one of 34 communes in the Pays Vidourle-Camargue. Aigues-Mortes is one of the four communes of the Loi littoral of SCoT in the South of Gard, attested in the Latinized form Aquae Mortuae in 1248. The name comes from the Occitan Aigas Mortas meaning dead water, or stagnant water equivalent to toponymic types in the Morteau Oil dialect cf. Morteau, mortua Aqua and Morteaue, mortua Aqua. The name comes from the Aigues-Mortes marshes and ponds that stretch around the village, Grau comes from the Occitan grau meaning pond with extension. Grau du Roy in French means pond of the King, the foundation of the city is said to have been by Gaius Marius, around 102BC but there is no documentary evidence to support this. A Roman by the name of Peccius fitted out the first salt marsh, salt mining started from the Neolithic period and was continued in the Hellenistic period, but the ancient uses of saline have not resulted in any major archaeological discovery. It is likely any remains were destroyed by modern saline facilities. In 791, Charlemagne erected the Matafère tower amid the swamps for the safety of fishermen and salt workers. Some argue that the signaling and transmission of news was not foreign to the building of tower which was designed to give warning in case of arrival of a fleet. This monastery still existed in 812, as confirmed by an act of endowment made by the Badila from Nîmes at the abbey

4.
Anduze
–
Anduze is a commune in the Gard department in southern France. The village is at the foot of the Cevennes range, in the plateau of the Languedoc scrublands. The lordship of Anduze which was established in the early 10th century was one of the oldest and most powerful of Languedoc, coining money, the family Anduze reigned as the supreme house of the Cevennes. It counted among its branches of the houses of Sauve, Roquefeuil, Sommieres, Anduze was the cradle of French sericulture from late 13th century. The city then became the center of trading in silk. It had up to 7,000 people at its peak, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Anduze was an important center of Protestantism. The walled city, which had 6000 inhabitants in 1570, became the headquarters of the Protestant forces of the South. In 1573, the city saw the birth of what Janine Garrison called the United Provinces of the South, including an attempted independent Huguenot State, based on local autonomy. Anduze was the basis of the resistance of the Duc de Rohan in 1622, in the nineteenth century, with the industrial revolution, knew new economic development in silk mills, hosiery and headgear took place, before being hit by recession. Anduze was also site of the Cevennes Coal Mines, prime contractors of French coal industry, the city is known for its zinc smelting, pottery, castle dating from the sixteenth century. Currently, tourism plays an important role in the economy of the area. Bambouseraie de Prafrance The Clock Tower dates from 1320, it has three levels and is reminiscent of the architecture of the tower of Constance Aigues-Mortes and it Became the town clock in 1569, it was spared during the destruction of the ramparts in 1629. The bell at the top of the turret in its campanile, the total building height is 22 meters. The New Castle is a mansion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on the occasion of its construction, it was built into the walls. It consists of two towers in front, Tower Pézène, it is part of Castle Pézène old stately home and residence of the counts of Beaufort fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The tower dates from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Meridian, installed in the clock of the city in 1569, in 1629 it was spared during the destruction of the ramparts, the Meridian was restored in 1989. The Grain market hall built in 1457, called The Orgerie or grain market and it was the place of the market for chestnuts and today at the local produce market. The barracks, they were built in 1740 on the Brie plan to house the troops, now houses the tourist office

5.
Beaucaire, Gard
–
Beaucaire is a French commune in the Gard department in the Occitanie region of southern France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as Beaucairois or Beaucairoises, the commune has been awarded one flower by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom. Beaucaire is located on the Rhône River some 15 km south-west of Avignon and 10 km north of Arles opposite Tarascon, which is in Bouches-du-Rhône department of Provence. Access to the commune is by the D999 road from Jonquières-Saint-Vincent in the west which passes through the north of the commune, the D966L comes from Saint-Bonnet-du-Gard in the north and comes down the banks of the Rhône to the town. The D90 branches off the D986L in the commune and passes in a circle around the town then continues east across the Rhone changing to the D99B, the D15 goes south from the town to Fourques. The D38 goes south-west from the town to Bellegarde, the D28 links the Ile du Comte to the east bank of the Rhone. A railway passes through the coming from Tarascon in the east with two stations in the commune then it continues to Nîmes in the west. The commune has an urban area in the north-east with the rest of the commune farmland. The Rhône river forms the eastern border of the commune as it flows south to join the sea at Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône. The river is also the border between Gard and Bouches-du-Rhône. The Canal du Rhône à Sète passes through the commune from Saint-Gilles in the south-west, a waterway called Laune de Pillet, a branch of the Rhone, cuts through the commune parallel to the Rhone forming the Ile de Pillet. There is a network of irrigation canals covering most of the farmland. The entire town is located in the Rhône Valley and has flat terrain mainly formed by the plain of the Rhône. The north of the commune has hills, especially north of the centre where the castle is located as well as Saint-Roman. Beaucaire probably is the French version of the Occitan language name Bèucaire, Beaucaire appears as Beaucaire on the 1750 Cassini Map and the same on the 1790 version. Founded in the 7th century BC, Beaucaire was known as a city on the famous Via Domitia and it was at this point that the Via Domitia divides in the direction of Arles, Nîmes, Remoulins, and Saint-Gilles. At that time, Beaucaire was called Ugernum and this was where, after the capture of Rome by the Vandals in 455, the Gallo-Roman nobility met to elect Avitus as the new emperor. A Roman mausoleum has been discovered on the Île du Comté, the Middle Ages saw a slowdown in the expansion of the city

6.
Beauvoisin, Gard
–
Beauvoisin is a commune in the Gard department in southern France. Beauvoisin is a southern village with a post office, bar, newsagent, grocers, butchers. Its quite famous for bull games in the city streets and the arenas, unlike Spanish bullfighting, the game in Gard is to retrieve decorations that are attached to the bulls horns. The idea is to be quick and nimble and to demonstrate your bravery rather than to kill or gain a victory over a bull, throughout the streets you will also see Empègue which appear annually in designs that reflect the local culture. The castle was a building being constructed in 1067 for the Knights Templar. The other most notable building is the Temple which was built on the ruins of an old church and this building was completed in 1834. The temple was built in 1834 by the architect Charled Durand on the ruins of the church, in 2012, it was officially declared to be historical monument. Costières de Nîmes AOC Communes of the Gard department INSEE

7.
Communes of France
–
The commune is a level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to civil townships incorporated municipalities in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany, the United Kingdom has no exact equivalent, as communes resemble districts in urban areas, but are closer to parishes in rural areas where districts are much larger. Communes are based on historical geographic communities or villages and have received significant powers of governance to manage the populations, the communes are the fourth-level administrative divisions of France. A French commune may be a city of 2.2 million inhabitants like Paris, communes typically are based on pre-existing villages and facilitate local governance. All communes have names, but not all named geographic areas or groups of people residing together are communes, a commune is a town, city, or municipality. Use of commune in English is a habit, and one that might be corrected. There is nothing in commune in French that is different from town in English. The French word commune appeared in the 12th century, from Medieval Latin communia, as of January 2015, there were 36,681 communes in France,36,552 of them in metropolitan France and 129 of them overseas. This is a higher total than that of any other European country. The whole territory of the French Republic is divided into communes and this is unlike some other countries, such as the United States, where unincorporated areas directly governed by a county or a higher authority can be found. There are only a few exceptions, COM of Saint-Martin and it was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe région. The commune structure was abolished when Saint-Martin became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007, COM of Wallis and Futuna, which still is divided according to the three traditional chiefdoms. It was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe region, the commune structure was abolished when Saint-Barthélemy became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007.88 square kilometres. The median area of metropolitan Frances communes at the 1999 census was even smaller, the median area is a better measure of the area of a typical French commune. This median area is smaller than that of most European countries. In Italy, the area of communes is 22 km2, in Belgium it is 40 km2, in Spain it is 35 km2, and in Germany. Switzerland and the Länder of Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, and Thuringia in Germany were the places in Europe where the communes had a smaller median area than in France. The communes of Frances overseas départements such as Réunion and French Guiana are large by French standards and they usually group into the same commune several villages or towns, often with sizeable distances among them

8.
Departments of France
–
In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. There are 96 departments in metropolitan France and 5 overseas departments, each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, they were called general councils, the departments were created in 1791 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity, the title department is used to mean a part of a larger whole. Almost all of them were named after geographical features rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of dArgenson and they have inspired similar divisions in many countries, some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a number, the Official Geographical Code. Some overseas departments have a three-digit number, the number is used, for example, in the postal code, and was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates. For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as the 45 and this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René dArgenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration, before the French Revolution, France gained territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces, during the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. Their boundaries served two purposes, Boundaries were chosen to break up Frances historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences, Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a days ride of the capital of the department. This was a security measure, intended to keep the national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of rural areas far from any centre of government. The old nomenclature was carefully avoided in naming the new departments, most were named after an areas principal river or other physical features. Even Paris was in the department of Seine, the number of departments, initially 83, was increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleons defeats in 1814-1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size, in 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice, the 89 departments were given numbers based on their alphabetical order. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle, Vosges and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following Frances defeat in the Franco-Prussian War

9.
Aimargues
–
Aimargues is a commune in the Gard department in southern France. The town of Aimargues may have Roman origins and is situated beside the Vidourle River on the floodplain of the River Rhône. Located some 26 km to the southwest of Nîmes, close to the border with the Hérault department, Aimargues also has a railway station on the line from Saint-Césaire to Le Grau-du-Roi. The Petite Camargue is an area of wetlands on the west side of the delta of the Rhône River in southern France, Aimargues is a small town in the Petite Camargue beside the River Vidourle which rises in the Cévennes Mountains to the northwest. Some 6,000 years BC much of the interior of the Petite Carmargue was occupied by a lagoon, l’étang de l’or, since then the lake has become progressively silted up. The countryside around Aimargues is flat and the soil is rich, being accumulated sediment brought down the River Rhône and deposited in its delta, as well as agricultural land there are levees, creeks, marshes, brackish ponds, lagoons and dunes in the area. The suffix argues suggests that the town of Aimargues has been in existence since antiquity and it was probably named after the Roman military commander Flavius Armatus. It is unclear when exactly Aimargues castle was built but it was in existence before 1185, king Louis IX is said to have set out for the Crusades from the town. In the 13th century, a census showed that the town had become a community with 522 homes. In 1565, the area came under the rule of the house of Crussol, Louis XIII ordered the destruction of the city walls. In the early 18th century, Jean Charles de Crussol included Baron dAymargues among his titles, the town has developed from an initial central core. This is self-contained and not traversed by routes extending from one side of the town to the other and it was originally surrounded by the city wall, has the château in its northwest corner and the church, reconstructed in the nineteenth century, in its centre. This ancient part is surrounded by another zone that also has tightly packed houses, the Commune of Aimargues has several buildings of historic interest, The Château de Teillan located 2 km to the south of the village is an old Roman castrum originally called Villa Telliamis. It subsequently belonged to Psalmody Abbey before it was acquired by the Bornier family, todays building dates from the second half of the 16th century with some 17th-century additions. It became a historic monument in 1992. The Mas de Malherbes, property of the Ménard-Dorian family, linked to the Victor Hugo one, the former 17th-century parish church was converted into an indoor market at the end of the 19th century. Now known as the Salle Georges Brassens, it is used as an exhibition centre, the village also has schools, nurseries, a library, a youth centre and an adult leisure centre. There is an arena where the course camarguaise takes place